


Hale and Farewell

by BooksAreMyDivision



Category: The Crucible - Miller
Genre: Gay Male Character, M/M, Suicide, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 00:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20165029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooksAreMyDivision/pseuds/BooksAreMyDivision
Summary: Reverend Hale is feeling guilty over causing John Proctors death and is battling his own feelings. Hale makes a choice and follows through





	Hale and Farewell

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all.  
This is an old English assignment of mine. My crusade throughout high school was to make as much of my work as possible in English queer. This was my response to being forced to read The Crucible and analyse it. I thought the way Hale spoke of John could be twisted into something queer and this is the result.

Hale POV

I can’t take this anymore, the outcome of my actions bears down greatly upon my mind. I can’t escape them, the voices of the people I help to condemn. They haunt me in my sleep and in my waking. The guilt I feel has eaten away at me until I barely resemble the man I was before although I shall never again desire to become that misguided fool again.

I thought I was doing the right thing but now I know that I was wrong and a pure man hung for my mistakes. How could I help condemn such a man as John Proctor, a man no more no more pure than the other innocents who hung and yet I mourn his death the greatest. And yet his was the one I fought against the most.

I left Salem nigh on a month ago, I could not bear to stay in the town and face the people whose loved ones I took away. I couldn’t bear to face John’s sons knowing that I could not save their father from his fate. Couldn’t face them knowing how I feel towards their father. However the further away I get from Salem the louder the voices in my mind get, they condemn me over and over again, saying that I should hang alongside them as a murderer, as a perjurer as I could not stop the judges for I was naught but a pawn in their game of power and I was too blind to see it. That I am a damned man walking and I agree with them. I do not deserve to live while they are dead. I gather up my bible and place it on the table before me knowing that I will need it soon, my rope is coiled beside my bed ready for when I will need it and a crate I near me ready for use.

I am a sinner, that is plain. Not only for the lives that I have cost but for the desires that I have no control over, the desires that go against Gods orders.  
The sole voice of comfort is that of John’s, it talks of the freedom found in death and that in death we could face each other as equals without judgement. That in death we could have the freedom that is not found in life and in religion. I have no faith in Heaven anymore, why should I. What worth is the belief of one man who is impure when the lives of so many purer innocents have been lost due to my lack of action. 

My sole time of relief is when the voice of John comes to me. He promises forgiveness and safety in death. He promises that in death I am free from these haunting voices, that I can be free from the constraints I have placed upon myself and my desires and passions. He says that my love is not a sin and is returned and will be for eternity. His whispers are the ones to break me. I slowly start to rise from my seat grabbing what I had prepared for this eventuality. As I attach the rope to my rafter I reflect on my actions and know that this is my only redemption. As I am about to drop I begin to pray “Forgive me Father for I have sinned…”

3rd person POV

The next morning the servant that normally cleans Hale’s house arrives to the visage of a broken and defeated man hanging from the rafters, in a state of shock the servant calls Reverend Parris over from Salem to make sure that the news reaches no one else. As Parris entering the house falls to his knees distraught at the sight and whispers to himself “What have we done, what have I done? We killed this man through our actions. Forgive me my friend for the wrongs we had forced upon you.”


End file.
